The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-03-07
DR.. CROSBY ON WINE.
A Presbyterian Minister who Con-
slider IL His Duty TO oppose Tee
totalism How He Intcrprets

"Teetotalsmp" said DR., Crosby
iharply. "Do believe in teetotalism?
/ not only do not believe in it, but l
consider it my duty as Christian min
lister and God-fearing man to take
resolute stand against it."
And the doctor who for twenty-five
years has guided the destinies of the
Fourth Avenue Presbyterian church,
walked to and fro in his residence at
No. 1l6 East Nineteenth street with the
air of man very much in earnest.
WhenI addressed the students at
Rutgers college yesterday" he contin-
ued. II simply gave utterance to views
which have privately expressed many
times. / believe that those members
of the Christian churches who are car
rying on the fanatical war against alco-
hol are not only injuring the cause OF
Christianity, but violating the COM
mands of God. Their platforms and
their methods of procedure are so pal
pably wrong that | believe they are an
important cause of driving people from
the church and making iniidels OF
them"
"Doyou hold that the bible advocates
the use of wineP"
"Most certainly"
"And in what places?"
"All throughit. from beginning to end.
Why, our Savior made wine. He COM
manded it to be drank every day, and
ordained its use at the eucharist. 1t
was intended to be used as the type OF
a great spiritual idea. 1t is a gift of
God to us, to be used reasonably, like
all his other gifts. The Christian war
against it is simply an ecclesiastical
arraignment of the Creator, who gave
it as blessing to man.
Then you do not believe in the
temperance pledge?"
"Not in the least. 1t a is wrong and
useless idea. If pledge myself to pay
man 800, or pledge myself to marry
a woman, it is perfectly proper, an
agreement entered into between man
and man or man and woman. But if
l lift my hands on high and pledge my
self to God that ! will never drink
another drop of alcohol it seems to me
that am simply self-righteous; that l
am assuming an equality with God
which is most unwarrantable and sim
full
'In addition to that, temperance
pledges are never kept. Why, my old
friend DR.. Payson, of Third avenue,
now deceased, told me that he had adj
ministered great many pledges and
that they were oftener broken than
held to. l am opposed to the temper
ance pledge from both standpoints."
"Then what is your position as re-
CARDS the use of liquor?'
81 believe in the reasonable use of
wine and beer, of fermented liquors.
do not believe in the use of distilled
spirits. There is alcohol in wine and
beer, to be sure, and the fanatics con-
sequently decry it, calling out that al
cohol is a deadly poison. 1t is not a
poison. 1t is one of the most widely
spread compounds. We find it every
where in food. They might as well
forbid me to eat peach because the
prussic acid which helps to make up its
exquisitve flavor is Il deadly drug when
taken in quantity"
"What is your idea of its reasonable
usep"
81 think every right-minded man can
settle that for himself. don't mean
that man shall sit down and drink
seventeen or eighteen schooners OF
beer at sitting. Even when he does it
is not the alcohol that hurts him, but
the swash, If l should drink seven
teen or eighteen schooners of water ii
would make me sick. 1t would turn
me into water barrel and naturally
injure the tissue of my system. But
that is due simply to the unreasonable
quantity. Why, Moses Gibbons went
before committee of the Legislature
and declared that beer created the
worst kind of drunkenness. L don't
believe it. l would like to see every
workingman in the country have his
comfortable glass of beer at dinner. if
he wants it, don't believe any bodyh as
the right to say he shall not have it. "
you do not believe. then, that the